I’ve been trying to grow things for way too many years. At camp, we used to have a garden, but we don’t have the resources to maintain one. I have a couple of Tower Gardens, but one year the staff unplugged it and let everything die. I may have cried a little… We still use our Tower Gardens at home. We grow a few things, but we haven’t really figured out what plants work best for our family. We are working on it though!
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This past Spring, I wanted to be sure that our oldest was able to join in the fun. Our amazing neighbor makes and sells large raised garden beds. I mentioned to her how I had thought about having a small one made for our toddler. Twenty minutes later she had put one together out of scrap materials and placed it on our back porch!
We started with simply filling it with dirt, and adding one of her favorite foods, strawberries! We also planted some peppermint so she would have something to smell. We wanted to make sure everything was edible. She was putting everything in her mouth of course, including the dirt. The dirt didn’t always stay in the bed, but she eventually got the hang of it. You can find her awesome Green Toys Gardening Set on Amazon here. Every day she would go out and check for a new strawberry. We had plenty!
In the summer we switched things up, and added some basil, peppermint, and marigolds (a family tradition). We moved the lettuce over to a different pot. The strawberries kept producing all summer!
Once fall starting coming, we still were able to get some lettuces and peppermint, but we decided to make it more of a sensory season themed garden. We moved the basil and peppermint and planted some simple mums to add some color. Then we threw some pumpkins in there and called it her pumpkin patch.
At Christmas, I found these mini snow villages houses at the Dollar Tree. I had full intention of buying some of the tiny evergreens from the hardware store, but they weren’t in the budget for this year. We did however find an awesome Christmas dinosaur from the dollar spot of Target that didn’t make it into the photo.
We hope to add a couple more beds this upcoming year. Her sister is going to need one! I love how we can change them up each season, and it’s something she can take charge of. Another bonus is that it’s an outside activity. You know us camp people believe in playing outside!
Thinking about camp, it would be great to have a couple medium height raised beds for our afterschool kiddos. We could plant a seasonal edible garden, but also add in some stuff just for fun like Adeline and I are doing. This week? Mini snow people? Trees and flowers made of ice and snow?
If you want to make one of these for a toddler, they are pretty basic. It is just a square of scrap wood with some wire on the bottom. We put a thin layer of leaves inside before the soil so it wouldn’t fall through. If you aren’t handy, find yourself an awesome neighbor who can make and sell them like ours, or search on the marketplace! Here is an example of one of her larger beds! We love you Leigh!
